Dinosaur Planet (game)

This article is about the video game, which was developed by Rare and published by Nintendo, before it was changed into Star Fox Adventures. For more information of the Dinosaur Planet itself, see Sauria.

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Media

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Development

What little is known about the game is that development was in progress sometime around 1999 and 2000. Originally, the game had nothing to do with the Star Fox series and was intended to be a stand-alone title. According to an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, he had noticed the striking similarities between the game's characters and those of Star Fox, and so the decision was made for the game to become part of Star Fox as a launch title for the Nintendo GameCube. Rare had previously released many pieces of artwork, screenshots, trailers and even soundtrack material before this decision was made and many of these can still be found today.

Plot

What little details about the plot, characters and settings present show that the game was still quite similar to the later Adventures.
The two main characters would have been Sabre (replaced by Fox), who was the son of a wizard named Randorn, and Krystal, who was Randorn's adopted daughter (and thus Sabre's adopted sister). They would have been accompanied by their respective sidekicks, Tricky (for Sabre) and Kyte (for Krystal). The gameplay allowed for the two characters to be used in different locations and sections of the game. To switch between the two, the player would use a character known as the SwapStone (which later became the WarpStone). It also appeared that both of the main characters had their own weapons: Krystal wielded a staff, while Sabre used a sword.
Other earlier versions of characters and enemies were also seen in the previews, including; General Scales, the SharpClaws, the Galdon, GrubTubs, the wounded EarthWalker and Scales' flying SharpClaw Galleon.

Trivia

In both Dinosaur Planet and Star Fox Adventures, when Krystal is facing the Galleon, she fires blue magic at it. In Dinosaur Planet she and Sabre show this power, but in Star Fox Adventures, Assault, & Command, she shows no sign of ever having this power.

The only difference between Krystal's encounter with General Scales between both games includes General Scales in Dinosaur Planet falling overboard after being electrocuted by lightning when grabbing onto the CloudRunner's cage. Krystal then pilots the Galleon to Warlock Mountain and disembarks. While in Adventures Krystal is thrown overboard by Scales only to be caught by her CloudRunner, saving her from a fatal fall, where she then flies over to Krazoa Palace.

After Krystal investigates Warlock Mountain, she returns to the Galleon to find General Scales still alive as he boards the Galleon and disembarks to an unknown location, laughing at Krystal in the process.

Krystal's reason for boarding the Galleon in Dinosaur Planet was to save the queen CloudRunner's daughter, who was caged near the head of the ship, while in Adventures, the young CloudRunner is still there, but merely serves as a tutorial for the talk button, while Krystal's reasons for boarding the ship are unknown.

Throughout Star Fox Adventures, all of the characters refer to the planet the game takes place on as "Dinosaur Planet", but in Assault, the characters refer to it as Sauria. The name was originally used in Dinosaur Planet, playing "Dinosaur Planet" in the "Sauria System".

Warlock Mountain and Krazoa Palace share many similarities even though Krazoa Palace was a separate place in Dinosaur Planet. While both areas have a separate level design, they both are seen with Krystal going there after her encounter with Scales and both having similar symbols on doors, puzzles, events, and rooms throughout both games.

Warlock Mountain and Krazoa Palace were meant to house a powerful being(s). Warlock Mountain was meant to house Randorn the wizard and Krazoa Palace was meant to house the Krazoa. This is seen in lines of dialogue from fallen EarthWalker warriors, where they describe who/what they were sent to protect. Both locations were attacked by General Scales for this reason.

Although Rare scrapped the project due to Nintendo wanting it to be a Star Fox title on the GameCube, there is still a lot of leftovers from the game's development. You can find trailers, concept art, music, and even a one-hour gameplay of Dinosaur Planet (includes the first 18 minutes and misc. scenes). However, no playable ROM has shown itself as of today, so the chance of a playable version of the game is near impossible. However, a prototype of Star Fox Adventures was revealed to have over an hour of Dinosaur Planet voice acting, having nearly everything except the endgame. The voice acting dates back to a time when the game was being converted into a Star Fox title, with most of the original storyline intact with Sabre being replaced by Fox in some instances and some references to certain elements in the series.

Both Sabre and Krystal had separate weapons, Sabre had a sword and Krystal had a compact staff. While Sabre was cut from the game, Krystal and her staff made it through to Adventures. Sadly, Krystal loses her staff at the beginning of the game, forcing us to never see her combat with it throughout the game.

Dinosaur Planet was going to be fully voice acted in English, seen in the fight against the Galleon where Krystal spoke of "...something about a mountain hidden within a storm..." as well as her CloudRunner calling out to her throughout the battle where to attack the Galleon. It is not clear if Dino language was an idea by Nintendo or a last minute idea by Rare.

General Scales was supposed to originally be a boss in Dinosaur Planet. However, due to Rare being rushed by the upcoming GameCube console and Microsoft buyout, they had to scrap General Scales as a boss. In either version, he was never the final boss.

Both Sabre and Krystal ran on the same model animation and lines in the N64 development. Throughout it, you can hear Sabre make the same grunts and one-liners for pet commands as Krystal, while his unique lines remained in his voice. Also if you look at the top-left corner of the HUD for Sabre, you will notice that there will be a picture of Krystal, not Sabre.